Canada Post’s Strike Is a Salvo Against the Gig Economy
Canada Post once set the standard for secure, middle-class work. Now, as government moves to gut it, postal workers are fighting against a future of gigified delivery jobs, vanishing benefits, and race-to-the-bottom wages.
Workers at Canada Post are on strike for the second time in less than a year, shutting down a delivery service for millions of households and businesses across the country. (Graham Hughes / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
For the second time in a year, Canadian postal workers are on a nationwide strike, fighting back against what could be the final nail in the coffin for the publicly owned postal system.
Following a September 25 announcement from the federal government instructing Canada Post to begin shuttering rural post offices and axing what’s left of door-to-door mail delivery, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) launched coast-to-coast job action.
Now in its second week, the strike marks the latest chapter in a nearly two-year-long saga. The postal workers’ union has been trying in vain to negotiate new collective agreements covering 55,000 members since late 2023. At every turn, the federal government has intervened to do the bidding of an obstinate postal management, buttressing the narrative that the crown corporation is broke and that workers must bear the cost of restructuring.
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